WORK started on Monday on a 246-space car park on the site of Huntingdonshire District Council s former depot at Bridge Place, Godmanchester. The £265,000 car park is expected to take 10 weeks to complete. The area will be fully lit, and CCTV cameras will

WORK started on Monday on a 246-space car park on the site of Huntingdonshire District Council's former depot at Bridge Place, Godmanchester.

The £265,000 car park is expected to take 10 weeks to complete. The area will be fully lit, and CCTV cameras will link to the district council's 24-hour control room contributing towards meeting the Park Mark - safer parking criteria.

HDC says the majority of its car parks have Park Mark status - an initiative of the Association of Chief Police Officers, aimed at reducing crime and the fear of crime in parking areas.

From July, long-stay visitors to the car park, which is currently free, will have to pay £1.50 for a stay of up to 10 hours or £4.80 for up to 23 hours. Similar changes will be made at the town's Riverside car park to discourage rail commuters taking up valuable town centre spaces.

The need for a further long-stay car park in Huntingdon was identified as part a review of the car parking strategy within the district's market towns. Consultants who studied the four towns found that Huntingdon needed additional weekday parking. The additional space at Bridge Place, a short walk from Huntingdon town centre, was vacated last September, when a new £6.4million council depot opened at Latham Road, off the A141 near Spittals.

Cambridgeshire County Council is part-way through constructing a traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing to improve the safety of crossing the road at that point.